A Letter to my Coach Purse

Dear Coach Purse,

We've had a lot memories over the past six years but I am afraid it is time to part ways. As I am sure you remember I bought you six years ago after I received my first bonus check from my first real job. I could have used that $300 to pay down my rapidly growing credit card balance or put it in my bare bones savings account. But, no. Instead I choose you. You should feel honored! You see at the time I needed you. To me you were a status symbol. You made me feel like a better person. I felt as if I was an adult and that I had finally arrived in the world. By proudly displaying you over my shoulder I felt stylish, affluent, and entitled. Which was exactly the opposite of who I really was at the time. I was beginning to drown in debt and I had more payments and financial obligations than I had the money for. So I clutched on to your leather straps and tried to forget about all of that. Because after all, I was 22 years old, and I deserved a $300 purse.

Over the past six months I have felt quite silly carrying you around. You just don't fit into my life any more. I'm a woman who makes her own laundry and dish detergent. I'm a woman who paid off over $25,000 in debt on one meager income in less than 15 months. How much sense does it make for me to carry around such a luxury item? It's not just my new frugal lifestyle. I have realized I don't need you any more. I don't need you to make me feel like a better person. I don't need the approving compliments from complete strangers. I don't need you to make me feel important. I have realized that I am a pretty awesome person on my own. When you are on my shoulder I feel like a walking advertisement for your company. I don't want other women to see you and think that they must carry around a status symbol too. I don't want to be seen with you. The bottom line is: I have outgrown you.

I have been meaning to give you up for a little while now but it just didn't make sense to get rid of a perfectly good purse. You were the only one I had left! Finally, I have a good excuse. A sippy cup full of sour milk leaked all over you and you reek to high heaven. I actually smiled when this happened because I knew I was finally free of you. Yes, I know I could go and get you professionally cleaned. But I am over you and the time has come for me to move on. Do not worry. I won't be carrying around my belongings in a grocery bag. I have ordered a beautiful hand made purse from an Etsy artisan that was made right here in the good ol' USA at a much more reasonable price. It will serve as both my purse and diaper bag so I won't have to cart two bags around any more. It is just a better fit for my lifestyle.

I want to thank you for your years of a service but with this letter I would like to bid you adieu.

Sincerely,
Hannah

The Living Room Closet

My latest task is to conquer the closet in the living room. I get a little anxiety attack every single time I open the door. I guess it isn't too bad but what you can't see is the contents of that file cabinet. It is STUFFED. It is so stuffed that I have a pile of paper waiting on top but I don't have any room for it. The ultimate goal is to get rid of that file cabinet completely and replace it with a small file box. I really want to scan everything and store it electronically. I am still trying to figure out the best way to go about doing this. I do have a printer/scanner combo but the scanner feature is temperamental and SLOW. Scanning all this paperwork will take me months of frustration. There is a scanner on the market that I have my eye on that scans up to ten sheets of paper at time and sends it to either your Evernote account or your Dropbox account. This sounds wonderful but its expensive and I can't decided if I want yet another piece of equipment lying around. So I am trying to find a better option. Maybe there is somewhere I can take all of this paperwork or a service that can do it for me. Also those clear stacking bins to the left? They are stuffed with all kinds of office supplies, forgotten electronics, cables to God only knows what, and various other odds and ends that need to go. My goal is to have this taken care of within the next month. If it wasn't for the paper situation I think I could probably accomplish this task by the end of the day. But tackling that file cabinet and potentially scanning what I need in there is going to take some time.

TO BE CONTINUED....